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Baenre felt strong again Lloth was back, and Lloth ith her, and K’yorl Odran, that wretched K’yorl, had badly erred Always before, the Spider Queen had kept House Oblodra in her favor, even though the so-called "priestesses" of the house were not pious and soe powers of the Oblodrans, this psionic strength, had intrigued Lloth as htened the other houses in Menzoberranzan None of those houses wanted a war against K’yorl and her clan, and Lloth hadn’t demanded one If Menzoberranzan was ever attacked from the outside, particularly from the illithids, whose cavern lair was not so far away, K’yorl and the Oblodrans would be of great help

But no erous line She had murdered a matron mother, and, while that in itself was not uncommon, she had intended to usurp power from Lloth’s priestesses, and not in the name of the Spider Queen

Matron Baenre knew all of this, felt the will and strength of Lloth within her "The Time of Troubles has passed," she announced to her faathered in her house, in the nearly repaired chapel

Mez’Barris Aro was there as well, in a seat of honor on the central dais, at Matron Baenre’s personal invitation

Matron Baenre took the seat next to the athered crowd exploded in cheers, and then, led by Triel, in song to the Spider Queen

Ended? Mez’Barris asked of Baenre, using the silent hand code, for they could not have been heard above the roar of two thousand Baenre soldiers

The Tiers responded

Except for House Oblodra, Mez’Barris reasoned, to which Baenre only chuckled wickedly It was no secret in Menzoberranzan that House Oblodra was in serious trouble No secret indeed, for the tanar’ri and other fiends continued to circle the Oblodran co the Clawrift, even attacking with abandon any Oblodran who showed herself

K’yorl will be forgiven? Mez’Barris asked, popping up her left thumb at the end of the code to indicate a question

Matron Baenre shook her head once briskly, then pointedly looked away, to Triel, as leading the gathering in rousing prayers to the Spider Queen

Mez’Barris tapped a long, curving fingernail against her teeth nervously, wondering how Baenre could be so secure in this decision Did Baenre plan to go after House Oblodra alone, or did she o into yet another alliance? Mez’Barris did not doubt that her house and House Baenre could crush House Oblodra, but she wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of tangling with K’yorl and those unexplored powers

Methil, invisible and standing off to the side of the dais, read the visiting hts easily, and then, in turn, imparted them to Matron Baenre

"It is the will of Lloth," Matron Baenre said sharply, turning back to regard Mez’Barris "K’yorl has denounced the Spider Queen, and, thus, she will be punished"

"By the Academy, as is the custom?" Mez’Barris asked, and hoped

A fiery sparkle erupted behind Matron Baenre’s red-glowing eyes "Bythat Mez’Barris would garner no further inforh not to press the point She slu, disturbing information Matron Baenre had not declared that an alliance of houses would attack Oblodra; she had declared a personal war Did she truly believe she could defeat K’yorl? Or were those fiends, even the great tanar’ri, more fully under her control than Mez’Barris had been led to believe? That notion scared the o more than a little, for, if it were true, what other "punishry and ambitious Matron Baenre hand out?

Mez’Barris sighed deeply and let the thoughts pass There was little she could do now, sitting in the chapel of House Baenre, surrounded by two thousand Baenre soldiers She had to trust in Baenre, she knew

No, she silently corrected herself, not trust, never that Mez’Barris had to hope Matron Baenre would think she was ht now be-alive than dead

Seated atop a blue-glowing driftdisk, Matron Baenre herself led the procession from House Baenre, down froing Lloth’s praises every step The Baenre lizard riders, Berg’inyon in co in and around the other house compounds to ensure that no surprises would block the trail

It was a necessary precaution whenever the first matron mother went out, but Matron Baenre did not fear any ao, no others had been told of the Baenre march, and certainly the lesser houses, either alone or in unison, would not dare to strike at the first house unless the attack had been perfectly coordinated

Froreat cavern came another procession, also led by a Baenre Triel, Gromph, and the other mistresses and masters of the drow Acade their students, every one Normally it was this very force, the powerful Academy, that exacted punishainst Menzoberranzan, but this ties that they would colory of Lloth revealed

By the ti already in place at the Clawrift, their numbers had swelled five times over Nobles and soldiers from every house in the city turned out to watch the spectacle as soon as they came to understand that House Baenre and House Oblodra would finish this struggle once and for all

When they arrived before the front gates of House Oblodra, the Baenre soldiers for her, not froathering There was , drow hands flashed frantically in heated conversations, and the fiends, understanding that so across the Oblodran coic with an occasional bolt of blue-white lightning or a fireball

Matron Baenre let the display continue for severalthe terror it caused within the doomed compound She wanted to savor this moment above all others, wanted to bask in the s from the compound of that in-or to finish, actually Baenre knehat shethe cere the war, and despite the doubts of Mez’Barris when she had shared it with her, Baenre held faith in the Spider Queen, held faith that it was Lloth’s will that House Oblodra be devoured

She reached under her robes and produced a piece of sulphur, the saiven her to allow the priestesses to open the gate to the Abyss in the small room at the back of the Qu’ellarz’orl Baenre thrust her hand skyward, and up into the air she floated There ca explosion, a rumble of thunder

All was suddenly silent, all eyes turned to the specter of Matron Baenre, hovering twenty feet off the cavern floor

Berg’inyon, responsible for his mother’s security, looked to Sos’Uht his mother was terribly vulnerable up there

Sos’Uhed at him He was not a priestess; he could not understand that Matron Baenre was more protected at thatlife

"K’yorl Odran!" Baenre called, and her voice seeiant

Locked in a roomite mound within the Oblodran compound, K’yorl Odran heard Baenre’s call, heard it clearly Her hands gripped tight on her throne’s carved marble arms She squeezed her eyes shut, as she ordered herself to concentrate

Now, above any other time, K’yorl needed her powers, and now, for the first ti, she knew, and though she believed that Lloth must somehow be behind this, she sensed, as many of the Spider Queen’s priestesses had sensed when the Tiun, that this trouble was beyond even Lloth

The probleun soon after K’yorl had been chased back to her house by the loosed tanar’ri She and her daughters had gathered to formulate an attack plan to drive off the fiends As alith the efficient Oblodran hts telepathically, the equivalent of holding several understandable conversations at once

The defense plan was corew confident that the tanar’ri would be sent back to their own plane of existence, and when that was accoo and properly punish Matron Baenre and the others Then so terrible had happened One of the tanar’ri had thrown forth a blast of lightning, a searing, blinding bolt that sent a crack running along the outer wall of the Oblodran compound That in itself was not so bad; the compound, like all the houses of Menzoberranzan, could take a tremendous amount of punishical powers, signified, was disastrous to the Oblodrans

At that same moment, the telepathic conversation had abruptly ended, and try as they in it anew

K’yorl was as intelligent as any drow in Menzoberranzan Her powers of concentration were unparalleled She felt the psionic strength within her h walls or yank the beating heart from an enemy’s chest They were there, deep in herthem forth She continued to blame herself, her lack of concentration in the face of disaster She even punched herself on the side of the head, as if that physical jarring would knock out soical manifestation

Her efforts were futile As the Tiic in the Real side-effects had occurred Throughout the Realic zones had appeared, areas where no spells would function, or, even worse, where no spells would function as intended Another of those side-effects involved psionic powers, the th was still there, as K’yorl sensed, but bringing forth that strength required a different mental route than before

The illithids, as Methil had informed Matron Baenre, had already discerned that route, and their poere functioning nearly as completely as before But they were an entire race of psionicists, and a race possessed of coence The illithids had alreadytheir psionic powers, but K’yorl Odran and her once powerful family had not

So the matron of the third house sat in the darkness, eyes squeezed tightly shut, concentrating She heard Baenre’s call, knew that if she did not go to Baenre, Baenre would soon come to her